Dem platform shaped to help Obama with abortion issue

Kristin Jensen of Bloomberg reports on the efforts of Democrats to give the warm and fuzzies to voters who find abortion abhorrent.

The party's platform supports the 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court ruling that made abortion legal and adds a twist, saying the party ``strongly'' backs a woman's decision to carry a pregnancy to term. The compromise language is the result of behind-the-scenes negotiations with abortion-rights groups and religious leaders on both sides of the issue.

The idea is to frame abortion as less of an either-or issue by discussing both the need to keep abortion legal and the desire to provide programs for expectant and new mothers. It may help Democrats woo evangelical Christians, a core Republican constituency that backed President George W. Bush by a margin of 77 percent in 2004.

"Voters that this will win over are those that are looking for an excuse to vote for Obama,'' said Joel Hunter, a Florida pastor who helped with the language and said he is a "pro-life'' Republican. "They just needed one signal that, if I vote for him, more babies can be saved than if we keep wrangling over whether Roe v. Wade is going to be overturned.''

Kristin Jensen of Bloomberg reports on the efforts of Democrats to give the warm and fuzzies to voters who find abortion abhorrent.

The party's platform supports the 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court ruling that made abortion legal and adds a twist, saying the party ``strongly'' backs a woman's decision to carry a pregnancy to term. The compromise language is the result of behind-the-scenes negotiations with abortion-rights groups and religious leaders on both sides of the issue.

The idea is to frame abortion as less of an either-or issue by discussing both the need to keep abortion legal and the desire to provide programs for expectant and new mothers. It may help Democrats woo evangelical Christians, a core Republican constituency that backed President George W. Bush by a margin of 77 percent in 2004.

"Voters that this will win over are those that are looking for an excuse to vote for Obama,'' said Joel Hunter, a Florida pastor who helped with the language and said he is a "pro-life'' Republican. "They just needed one signal that, if I vote for him, more babies can be saved than if we keep wrangling over whether Roe v. Wade is going to be overturned.''